"The Charisma Myth" by Olivia Fox Cabane

• Charisma is a skill that you can learn and practice.
• Charisma gets people to like you, trust you, and want to be led by you.
• Charisma is the result of specific nonverbal behaviors. Its presence depends on whether or not someone is exhibiting these behaviors.
• The equation that produces charisma is actually fairly simple. All you have to do is give the impression that you possess both high power and high warmth, since charismatic behaviors project a combination of these two qualities.
• Presence turns out to be the real core component of charisma, the foundation upon which all else is built.
• Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation:
• Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences.
• Reduce how quickly and how often you nod.
• Pause for two full seconds before you speak.
• To be successful, you have to be willing to put in the effort of applying what you read.
• Charismatic behavior can be broken down into three core elements: presence, power, and warmth. These elements depend on both on our conscious behaviors and on factors we don’t consciously control.
• When we’re not fully present in an interaction, people will see it.
• When you’re perceived as disingenuous, it’s virtually impossible to generate trust, report, or loyalty. And it’s impossible to be charismatic.
• Presence is a learnable skill. Like any other ability, you can increase it with practice and patience.
• Being present means simply having a moment-to-moment awareness of what’s happening. It means paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your own thoughts.
• Because so few of us are ever fully present, if you can manage even a few moments of full presence from time to time, you’ll make quite an impact.
• The very next time you’re in a conversation, try to regularly check whether your mind is fully engaged or whether it is wandering elsewhere.
• Being seen as powerful means being perceived as able to affect the world around us, whether through influence on or authority over others, large amounts of money, expertise, intelligence, sheer physical strength, or high social status. We look for clues of power in someone's appearance, in others’ reaction to this person, and, most of all, in the person’s body language.
• Warmth, simply put, is goodwill toward others. Warmth tells us whether or not people will want to use whatever power they have in our favor.
• Warmth is asses almost entirely through body language and behavior; it’s evaluated more directly than power.
• Both power and warmth are necessary conditions for charisma.
• For charisma, your body language matters for more than your words do. No matter how powerful your message r how skillfully crafted your pitch, if your body language is wrong, you won’t be charismatic.
• Our body language expresses our mental state whether we like it or not.
• Charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind.
• Individuals with strong internal skills are aware of what exactly is happening inside them and know how to handle it.
• Knowing your internal world starts with one key insight upon which all charisma is built: your mind can’t tell fact from fiction. This is the one dimension of your internal world that can help you get into the right charismatic mental state at will, and almost instantly.
• Because your brain cannot distinguish imagination from reality, imaginary situations cause your brain to send your body the same commands as it would for a real situations. Whatever your mind believes, your body will manifest. Just be getting into a charismatic mental state, your body will manifest a charismatic body language.
• The mind-over-body effect also has a corresponding downside, called the nocebo effect. In this case, the mind creates toxic consequences in the body in reaction to completely fictional causes.
• Increasing your charisma requires first knowing which internal obstacles are currently inhibiting your personal charisma potential.
• Most of us tend to interpret events--whether they’re personal or impersonal--as relating to us.
• Any physical discomfort that affects your visible, external state--your body language--even slightly may affect how charismatic you are perceived to be.
• Whenever you interact with someone, assume that he or she will feel that whatever you do relates to him or to here.
• Counteracting charisma-impairing physical discomfort is simple:
• prevent
• recognize
• remedy or explain
• As much as you can, plan ahead to ensure you’re physically comfortable.
• People may gain valuable confidence, and therefore charisma, from feeling that they look impressive even if their clothing is not comfortable. It’s really up to you to decide: is the discomfort worth the gain in confidence?
• Check in with your face from time to time; notice if it is tense. If you realize that something has created tension in your face, do something about it.
• Knowing how to skillfully handle mental discomfort is even more important than knowing how to handle physical discomfort.
• Anxiety is a serious drawback to charisma.
• The minute our brain registers ambiguity, it flashes an error signal. Uncertainty registers as a tension: something that must be corrected before we can feel comfortable again.
• It’s worth learning how to handle uncertainty, not just because it increases charisma but also because the ability to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity turns out to be one of the strongest predictors of success in business.
• The single most effective technique I’ve found to alleviate the discomfort of uncertainty is the responsibility transfer.
• The very act of comparing and evaluating hinders our ability to be fully present. Trying to optimize both impairs our presence and creates anxiety due to the pressure of finding the best possible choice.
• Few things impact people’s performance more than how they feel about themselves.
• Physiological negativity can have real physical consequences.
• Self-criticism is one of the most common obstacles to great performance in any field.
• Self-doubt, simply put, is lack of confidence in our own ability to achieve something: we doubt our capacity to do it or our capacity to learn how to do it.
• With greater responsibility comes greater internal doubt as the cost of failure gets higher and higher.
• Negativity exists to spur you to action, to either resolve the problem or get out of the situation. Feelings like fear or anxiety are designed to get you to do something. They’re uncomfortable because they’re “designed” to be uncomfortable.
• Skillfully handling any difficult experience is a three-step process: destigmatize discomfort, neutralize negativity, and rewrite reality.
• Destigmatizing an experience means reducing its power simply by understanding that it’s normal, common, and nothing to be anxious about or ashamed of. Feeling internal discomfort and negativity is a natural part of life. Everyone experiences it.
• Shame is the real killer. Of all the emotions that human beings can feel, it is one of the most toxic to health and happiness.
• Shame hits us so powerfully because it conveys a message about our fundamental acceptability as human beings.
• The next step in handling internal negativity is to neutralize negative thoughts. The best way to do this is to realize that your thoughts aren’t necessarily accurate at all.
• Our mind’s view of reality can be, and often is, completely distorted.
• When your brain spins negative scenarios, remind yourself that you may not be getting an accurate perception of reality. Your brain might be following its negativity bias, playing up some elements more than others, or omitting some positives entirely.
• Because trying to suppress a self-critical thought only makes it more central to your thinking, it’s a far better strategy to simply aim to neutralize it.
• Once the fight-or-flight response is aroused, it’s hard to quiet down. Anger is a difficult emotion to flush out of your system.
• Deciding to change your belief about what happened effectively decreases the brain’s stress levels.
• Deciding to change beliefs is a far more effective and healthier solution than attempting to repress or ignore emotions.
• They key questions are: Which mental state would be most useful in this situation? And which version of reality would help you get there? For charisma, you can use this technique whenever a situation threatens your level of warmth or confidence.
• Being comfortable with discomfort is a secret weapon.
• Focusing on the minute sensations of your physical discomfort serves a dual purpose: it gives your mind something concrete to focus on other than its growing conviction that this situation is unbearable.
• The ability to handle discomfort is a highly valuable skill.
• Because of its powerful mental and physiological effects, visualization is one of the most effective charisma-boosting tools available.
• An alternative to visualization is to select key phrases to mentally focus on.
• Because physiology affects psychology, creating certain movements or postures can bring up specific emotions in your mind.
• Visualization is indeed a powerful tool. Of all the charisma boosting techniques, this is the one I recommend making a permanent part of your toolkit. If you gain nothing else from this book, this one technique will make a critical difference to your charisma.
• One way to invoke a sense of gratitude is to focus on little things that are physically present.
• Another good gratitude-enhancing tools is to view your life through a third-person lens, writing a narrative about yourself cast in a positive light.
• Goodwill is the second step on the road to accessing warmth and, ultimately, charisma. Using goodwill in your daily interactions can instantly infuse your body language with more warmth, kindness, care, and compassion--all very charismatic qualities.
• Goodwill is the simple state of wishing others well. You can think of it as a mental muscle that can be strengthened through practice.
• One simple but effective way to start is to try to find three things you like about the person you want to feel goodwill toward. No matter whom it is you’re talking to, find three things to appreciate or approve of.
• Goodwill means the you wish someone well without necessarily knowing how they’re feeling.
• Empathy means that you understand what they feel; perhaps you’ve had a similar experience in the past.
• Compassion is empathy plus goodwill: you understand how they feel, and you wish them well.
• First comes empathy, the ability to understand what someone is failing, to detect distress; second, sympathy, being emotionally moved by distress; and third, compassion, which arises with the desire to care for the well-being of the distressed person.
• Self-confidence is our belief in our ability to do or to learn how to do something.
• Self-esteem is how much we approve of or value ourselves. It’s often a comparison-based evaluation.
• Self-compassion is how much warmth we can have for ourselves, especially when we’re going through a difficult experience.
• The higher one’s level of self-compassion, the lower one’s level of self-pity.
• Self-compassion is feeling that what happened to you is unfortunate, wheres self-pity is feeling that what happened to you is unfair.
• Self-pity can lead to resentment or bitterness, and to feeling more isolated and alienated. In contrast, self-compassion often leads to increased feelings of connectedness.
• Emotions and body language are so linked that adopting a certain posture or facial expression will, in fact, create the corresponding feelings in your mind.
• You can reverse-engineer many emotions be adopting the corresponding body language.
• Willpower is a bit like a muscle that fatigues depending on how much we use it. Exerting willpower physically fatigues us. It is a finite resource, so be strategic about where and when you expend it.
• Be aware that everything that enters your mind affects your internal state.
• Stay charismatic by regularly using all the tools you’ve learned.
• Just as there are different leadership and personality styles, there are also different charisma styles.
• Focus charisma is primarily based on a perception of presence. It gives people the feeling that you are fully present with them, listening to them and absorbing what they say.
• Remember that one of the foundations of charisma is making other people feel good about themselves.
• We assess focus charisma entirely through demeanor.
• Focus charisma requires, of course, the ability to focus and be truly present.
• Focus charisma is appropriate for almost all business situations. It’s particularly useful when you need people to open open and share information.
• Visionary charisma makes others feel inspired; it makes us believe.
• Visionary charisma is so effective, because of our natural discomfort with uncertainty.
• Conveying visionary charisma requires the ability to project complete conviction and confidence in a cause. In this way, visionary charisma is based on power. However, it is also based on warmth.
• The message matters for visionary charisma. This means knowing how to craft a bold vision and knowing how to deliver the message charismatically.
• One of the keys to communicating your visionary charisma is getting yourself into a state of complete conviction, shedding any doubt.
• Kindness charisma is primarily based on warmth. It connects with people’s hearts, and makes them feel welcomed, cherished, embraced, and, most of all, completely accepted.
• The human reaction to authority runs deep; it’s hardwired into our brains.
• Authority charisma is primarily based on a perception of power: the belief that this person has the power to affect our world.
• We evaluate someone’s authority charisma through four indicators: body language, appearance, title, and the reactions of others.
• We are biologically programmed to care about status and to be impressed by it because this instinctive reaction favors our survival: high-status individuals have the power to help or hurt us.
• Your main aim if you want to gain authority charisma is to project power by displaying signs of status and confidence.
• To project power and confidence in your body language, you’ll need to learn how to “take up space” with your posture, reduce non verbal reassurances (such as excessive nodding), and avoid fidgeting.
• Give yourself “introversion breaks” during a social gathering: five-minute pockets of solitude.
• Facial expressions are universal.
• People like people who like them.
• No matter how hard we try to be objective, clothing matters.
• If you want to impress others, look at the range of choices [of clothing] within that environment and choose the upper end.
• The right handshake costs far less and will do far more for you than a designer suit can.
• Having a great handshake is critical to authority charisma.
• An easy way to start interactions in a way that both communicates warmth and sends the conversation down the right path is to offer a compliment about something the person is wearing. Continue with open ended questions.
• The word story has a very strong emotional effect on most people--it sends them straight into storytelling mode, which instantly changes the rapport between the two of you.
• To keep people talking, simple ask open-ended questions.
• When you’re speaking, the one word that should pop up most often in your conversations is not I but you.
• Becoming a charismatic conversationalist means that people will really enjoy being around you, and may be increasingly reluctant to let you go.
• The more charismatic you become, the harder it will be to escape your new found fans.
• What impacts people isn’t the words or content used. Rather, they remember how it felt to be speaking with you.
• Listening skills are an absolute requirement for charisma.
• Three keys to communicating presence: attentive listening, refraining from interrupting, and deliberate pausing.
• Great listening skills start with the right mindset: both the willingness and the mental ability to be present, pay attention, and focus on what the other person is saying.
• Effective listening means behaving in a way that makes whomever you’re speaking with feel truly understood.
• Good listeners know never, ever to interrupt--not even if the impulse to do so comes from excitement about something the other person just said.
• To stop interrupting others could be the single most important skill I’ve learned.
• Great listeners know to let others interrupt them. When someone interrupts you, let them!
• People really do love to hear themselves talk. The more you let them speak, the more they will like you.
• Master listeners know one extra trick, one simple but extraordinarily effective habit that will make people feel truly listened to and understood: they pause before they answer.
• When someone has spoken, see if you can let your facial expression react first, showing that you’re absorbing what they’ve just said and giving their brilliant statement the consideration it deserves. Only then, after about two seconds, do you answer.
• Our minds link the sensations we’re experiencing to the places, people, and physical sensations we notice while we’re experiencing them.
• To be charismatic, you need to create strong positive associations and avoid creating negative ones.
• The next time you’re given a compliment, the following steps will help you skillfully handle the moment:
• Stop.
• Absorb the compliment. Enjoy it if you can.
• Let that second of absorption show on your face. Show the person that they’ve had an impact.
• Thank them. Saying “Thank you very much” is enough, but you can take it a step further by thanking them for their thoughtfulness or telling them that they've made your day.
• Don’t try to impress people. Let them impress you, and they will love you for it.
• Image generation has a powerful impact on emotions and physiological states and a high impact on brain functions.
• When you craft your images and metaphors, try to make them sensory-rich: involve as many of the five senses as possible.
• Attention is a precious resource, just like time and money. Anytime you ask people to listen to what you say or read what you’ve written, you’re asking them to spend both their time and their attention on you. You’re asking them to give you some of their resources.
• The longer you speak, the higher the price you’re making them pay, so the higher the value ought to be.
• Voice fluctuation is the foundation for both vocal warmth and power.
• The degree to which your voice fluctuates affects your persuasiveness and your charisma.
• Increasing voice fluctuation means making your voice vary in any of the following ways: pitch, volume, tone, tempo, or rhythm.
• One classic exercise to hone your projection skills is to imagine that your words are arrows.
• A slow, measured tempo with frequent pauses conveys confidence.
• The only thing you need to do in order to project more warmth in your voice is smile.
• Nonverbal modes of communication are hardwired into our brains much deeper than the more recent language-processing abilities and they affect us far more strongly.
• As a leader, the emotions conveyed by your body language, even during brief, casual encounters, can have a ripple effect through your team or even your entire company.
• The potency of your emotional contagion is one good measure of your level of charisma.
• Imitating someone’s body language is an easy way to establish trust and rapport.
• When you consciously mirror someone’s body language, you activate deep instincts of trust and liking.
• Because people focus primarily on themselves while interacting they usually won’t notice you’re mirroring unless you are exceedingly obvious about it.
• Once you’re in a mirrored position, spend your entire listening time in that mode: as long as you’re listening, match your body language to hers.
• Being charismatic means making others feel comfortable, at ease, and good about themselves when they are around us.
• Good eye contact is incredibly important.
• Eye contact is one of the main ways charismatic masters make you feel the you are the most important person in the room.
• Keep eye contact for three full seconds at the end of your interaction with someone.
• Two of the most common eye contact issues people have are the lack of eye contact due to shyness and lack of eye contact due to distraction.
• Charismatic eye contact means switching to a softer focus. This immediately relaxes our eyes and face, and quiets down our stress system.
• Few things impair charisma more than bad eye contact and few things gain you charisma points more than improving your eye contact.
• People simply accept what you project.
• We read confidence by how much space people are willing to take up.
• Your job is to learn to take up space and get comfortable doing so.
• High status, high-confidence body language is characterized by how few movements are made. Composed people exhibit a level of stillness, which is sometimes described as poise.
• When you want to increase your poise, there are three major issues to look out for. The first is excessive or rapid nodding. The second hindrance is excessive verbal reassurance. The third issue is restlessness or fidgeting.
• Be aware that broadcasting too much power can come across as either arrogant or intimidating for some people.
• Every time someone sees you, their perception of you is filtered through the context in which you both operate: their internal state and their persona and cultural filters.
• We all crave honest appreciation.
• People are incredibly susceptible to praise.
• The most effective and credible compliments are those that are both personal and specific.
• Hostility is often nothing but the external manifestation of internal turmoil.
• When you’re delivering unpleasant new of any kind, your body language is everything.
• The right body language for delivering bad news is one of warmth: care, concern, understanding, and empathy. Essentially, demonstrate as much kindness charisma as you can.
• Human beings remember “firsts” and we tend to remember “lasts” as well.
• Having a disagreement or a conflict can actually improve a relationship and be a great thing in the end.
• When apologizing your first concern is to let the other person have their say. The simplest and most effective way to do so is just to listen: give them the complete presence of focus charisma.
• Once you’re sure that you fully understand the complaint, and if you agree that the fault was yours, a true-blue apology is in order. A simple “I’m very sorry” delivered with full presence and full warmth can work wonders.
• To communicate presence try closing your eyes while listening.
• Stay standing and walk around while focusing entirely on the phone call.
• Do not answer the phone in a warm and friendly manner. Instead, answer crisply and professionally. Then, only after you hear who is calling, let warmth or even enthusiasm pour forth in your voice. This simple technique is an easy and effective way to make people feel special.
• Write your email as you normally would, but before you send it, simply cut and post so that whatever pertains to the other person appears first and most prominently.
• Select the single most important idea you want to convey and make it as crystal clear and easy to understand as you possible can. Ideally, you should be able to articulate your message in one sentence.
• Within your main message, have three to five key supporting points.
• The human brain thinks in triads, and it cannot immediately comprehend numbers greater than four.
• Stories have a particularly strong impact on people.
• For your stories to be most effective, choose characters that are similar to the people in your audience to make them more relatable and make them as entertaining (and short!) as a Hollywood sneak preview.
• Charisma takes practice.
• Moving comfortably around the stage will make you appear much more confident, powerful, and charismatic.
• It takes courage to pause, but pausing regularly during your presentations is an important skill to acquire. It’s one of the hallmarks of effective speakers and really is one of the key tools for great speaking. Throughout your speech, pause frequently, deliberately.
• When you walk on stage, come to the center, face the audience, and stop. Remain completely silent as you count three full seconds while slowly sweeping your eyes across the crowd and making eye contact. Nothing rivets and audience's attention like this kind of silence.
• The single most important guideline for a successful speech is simple: make it about them, not about you.
• It’s easier to be perceived as charismatic during a crisis because people facing an emergency are more readily affected by a leader's magnetism; they become “charisma hungry.”
• Express high expectations. Sometimes, simply assigning to people the labels you want them to live up to is enough.
• Expressing high performance expectations while communicating a high degree of confidence in their ability to meet those expectations is the hallmark of charismatic leadership.
• To be charismatic, your vision must vividly illustrate the difference between the way things are now and the way they could be. Charismatic leaders often point out deficiencies in the status quo, contrast this picture to a glorious future, and show how they intend to get there.
• Having a vision isn’t enough; you also must be able to communicate it.
• In times of crisis, people instinctively turn to individuals who are bold, confident, and decisive.
• Giving people a sense of ownership for your success is a great way to prevent resentment and engender good feelings, such as pride and loyalty, instead.
• Because charismatic people seem endowed with extra powers, we expect more of them than we do of others. We expect greater results and will not be content, much less impressed, with good but not extraordinary performance,
• Charisma has three essential components: presence, power, and warmth.
• Being present--paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts--can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued.
• Because your body language telegraphs your internal state to those around you, in order to be charismatic--to exhibit presence, power, and warmth--you must display charismatic body language.
• Because your mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, be creating a charismatic internal state your body language will authentically display charisma.
• In terms of achieving charisma, your internal state is critical. Get the internal state right, and the right charismatic behaviors and body language will pour forth automatically.
• Any internal discomfort--either physical or mental--can impair how you feel, how you perform, and how others perceive you.
• Physical tension caused by something as simple as the sun in your eyes produces the same changes in body language as a more serious discomfort, like anxiety or irritation.
• Prevention is optimal: plan ahead to ensure comfort in clothing location, and timing.
• Aim to stay aware of any physical sensation of discomfort. If physical discomfort arises during an interaction act promptly to alleviate or explain it.
• Use techniques such as the responsibility transfer to reduce the feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction that play out in your body language and inhibit your charisma.
• Understand that mental negativity such as anxiety, dissatisfaction, self-criticism, or self-doubt is normal and something that everyone experiences.
• To be charismatic, you must first learn to overcome the primary obstacle to charisma: internal discomfort.
• Skillfully handle internal discomfort with a three-step process: destigmatize your discomfort, neutralize your negative thoughts, and rewrite your perception of reality.
• Destigmatize and dramatic uncomfortable feelings be remembering that they are survival instincts and a natural part of the human experience. Think of others who’ve gone through this before--especially people you admire--and see yourself as part of a community of human beings experiencing the same feeling at the same moment.
• Neutralize unhelpful negative thoughts by remembering that the mind often distorts reality and filters your environment to highlight the negative. Think of your negative thoughts as graffiti on a wall--you may find it an ugly sight, but just because you see an ugly sight doesn’t mean you’re an ugly person.
• Rewrite reality by considering a few helpful alternatives to your current perspective. For maximum effect, write down your new realities by hand and describe them in vivid detail.
• For advanced practice, delve into the physical sensations of discomfort. Focusing on the sensations gives your mind something concrete to focus on, drawing your attention away from your feeling that the experience is unbearable.
• Creating an optimal mental state is crucial to unleashing your full charisma potential.
• Visualization can help you create the right mental state and this the right charismatic body language. To make visualizations most effective, vividly engage all five sense in your imagination.
• You can increase both warmth and confidence by practicing gratitude, goodwill, and compassion for others as well as for yourself.
• Just as professional athletes and performers do, plan a gradual warm-up to reach your peak charismatic performance. Before important events, avoid experiences that would impair your mental state and plan warmth- and confidence-boosting activities instead.
• Your body affects your mind. Flip the visualization technique on its head and practice adopting the right posture and facial expressions to access more of almost any desired internal state.
• Choosing the right charisma style depends on your personality, goals, and the situation.
• You can alternate among different charisma styles or even blend them together. Don’t force yourself into a charisma style that is just too awkward for you. Doing so would negatively affect how you feel and how others perceive you.
• The more charisma styles you can access, the more versatile and confident you will be.
• Stretch out of your comfort zone in low-stakes situations.
• Let goodwill by your safety net. Coming from a place of genuine goodwill gives you the best chance of getting your charisma right.
• First impressions happen within seconds and can affect not only the rest of the interaction but also the rest of your relationship with that person.
• People feel most comfortable with those who are similar to them in some way, including appearance and behavior. Do your homework and decide how much you want to adapt your dress and word choice to your environment.
• A good handshake can go a long way. Likewise, a bad one can leave an unfavorable and lasting first impression. It’s worth spending some time perfecting the right way to greet someone.
• Great conversationalists keep the spotlight on the other person and make them feel good about themselves.
• Know how to gracefully exit a conversation, leaving others with positive feelings.
• Power, presence, and warmth are important for both charismatic speaking and charismatic listening.
• Great listening skills are the key to communicating charismatic presence.
• Never interrupt people, and occasionally pause a second or two before you answer.
• People associate you with the feelings you produce in them. Avoid creating negative associations: don’t make them feel bad or wrong.
• Make people feel good, especially about themselves. Don’t try to impress them--let them impress you, and they will love you for it.
• Get graphic: use pictures, metaphors, and sensory-rich language to convey a compelling, charismatic message.
• Use as few words as possible, and deliver as much value as possible: entertainment, information, or good feelings.
• To emanate vocal power, use a slow, measured tempo; insert pauses between your sentences; and drop your intonation at the end.
• To emanate vocal warmth, you need to do only one thing: smile, or even just imagine smiling.
• While our words speak to a person’s logical mind, our nonverbal communication speaks to a person’s emotional mind.
• Nonverbal communication amplifies verbal communication when the two are congruent.
• When verbal and nonverbal messages contradict, we tend to trust what we see in the other person’s body language more than what we hear them say.
• Through emotional contagion, your emotions can spread to other people. As a leader, the emotions conveyed by your body language, even during brief casual encounters, can have a ripple effect on your team or even your entire company.
• To communicate warmth, aim to make people feel comfortable: respect their personal space, mirror their body language, and keep your eyes relaxed.
• When people come to you in need of reassurance, first mirror their body language, the lead them to more calm, open, and confident, positions.
• When people are defensive, break their body language lock by handing them something to look at or something they will have to lean forward to take.
• To project power, take up space (be the big gorilla) and be still (adopt a regal posture).
• Cut out verbal and nonverbal reassurances like head bobbing and excessive uh-huh-ing.
• Approach difficult people individually and choose the right charisma style for each person and each situation.
• Express appreciation for their help or positive impact: it'll make them rationalize their actions in your favor.
• When delivering bad news, get into a state of compassion, and show warmth and care in your timing, body language, and verbal language.
• When delivery criticism, get into a state of goodwill, and focus the request for change on specific behaviors rather than on personal traits.
• When delivering apologies, show presence in hearing them out completely, show warmth in your apology, and show power in how you’ll correct the mistake or prevent its reoccurrence.
• With phone and email communication, use all the tools you’ve learned for in-person communication.
• Your presentation should have one main, simple, crystal-clear message, supported by three to five key points.
• Support each point with an entertaining story, interesting statistic, concrete example, or vivid metaphor.
• Make your presentation short and entertaining. Watch the value of each sentence.
• Arrive early if you can; walk the stage to visualize and own it.
• Use a wide, well-balanced stance and take up as much space as possible on stage. Limit superfluous gestures that distract the audience’s attention.
• Speak as if you’re sharing a secret with the audience, telling them something special and confidential.
• Use smiles and fluctuation to warm your voice.
• Keep eye contact for one to two seconds per person.
• Pause frequently and deliberately to show confidence and add drama as well as give yourself a chance to breathe.
• Charisma is particularly effective in crisis situations.
• Stay in a calm, confident internal state so that your emotional contagion effect is positive.
• Express high expectations of people, and communicate your complete confidence in their ability to rise to the occasion.
• Articulate a bold vision, show your confidence in your ability to realize that vision, and act decisively to achieve it.
• Charisma has a few possible downsides: you can become the target of envy and resentment, others can reveal too much during your interactions, you are held to a higher standard, it can be lonely at the top, and charisma may work even when it shouldn’t.
• To mitigate envy and resentment, reflect or transfer raise and glory. Highlight others who deserve praise and give people ownership of your success.
• To stop people from oversharing, interject a “me, too” story, or help them stigmatize if it’s too late to do so.
• Showing vulnerability will make you more likeable and more relatable, and will prevent people from expecting you to be superhuman, all-powerful, all-knowing, and always right. Charisma is a powerful tool--use it responsibly.